Sounds Profitable

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Apple's fall software releases bring a wave of new Apple Podcasts features across iOS 27, tvOS 27, and macOS 27, led by a video-first redesign. A revamped Apple TV app adds video podcast playback and channel browsing, while full transcripts, chapters, and a new Search in Show tool arrive across devices.
• Amazon Music is expanding its global video podcast partnerships, integrating shows hosted on ART19, Omny Studio, and Flightcast, with SiriusXM, Megaphone, and Libsyn to follow. Video is rolling out to new markets including the UK, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Japan, and publishers keep control of hosting, ad inventory, and targeting.
• The Podcast Study 2026, built from a nationally representative survey of 1,205 listeners, finds 82% see the host as a significant reason they tune in and that listeners remember and act on host-read ads more than other formats. The research also maps new revenue paths through ad-light subscriptions and interest-based targeting.
• NPR unveiled a packed fall slate headlined by Machine Gods, a video-first, twice-weekly show from Hard Fork creators Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. The public radio outlet also announced Your Turn with Allison Aubrey and a weekend expansion of Planet Money's The Indicator.
• Members of the Podcast Standards Project are meeting tomorrow during Podcast Movement to push for features that improve the open podcasting ecosystem. The gathering is open to anyone who builds for open podcasting, member or not.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Podcast Week in New York kicked off with the Sounds Profitable Business Summit, where This American Life's Ira Glass argued that podcasting's depth and audience connection make it more effective for advertisers than most influencer content. Panelists also pushed back on Spotify skip-button anxiety, making the case that better ads and more data transparency beat fear.
• Genius Sports CRO Josh Linforth lays out how athlete-tracking technology is reshaping athlete-led media, using the Chris Paul partnership to show how the same data players rely on can feed fans directly and reshape sponsorships around content like athlete-led podcasts.
• PRX named Chief Operating Officer Jason Saldanha its next president and CEO, effective October 15, succeeding Kerri Hoffman after more than a decade leading the organization, launching Radiotopia and moving over $200 million to independent creators.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Podcasts Take Over New York — Podcast Week NYC kicks off with three back-to-back events: the Sounds Profitable Business Summit today and tomorrow, the 2026 IAB Podcast Upfront on Wednesday, and Podcast Movement closing out Thursday and Friday. Tom Webster has teased a keynote built on The Podcast Landscape 2026 data he expects to spark real industry debate.
• Magellan AI's Q2 2026 Podcast Measurement Benchmark Report — New benchmarks show roughly 41% of podcast ad site visits land within seven days and 76% within 30, so reading a campaign too early can undercount results by more than half. Host-read ads posted a 3.22% median response rate against 2.09% for produced spots, and video shows outpaced audio-only.
• Zero Seconds by Adam McNeal — ADOPTER Media's Adam McNeal argues for demanding YouTube "Engaged View" reporting in ad contracts, after founder Glenn Rubenstein warned the platform's new view metric can nearly double public counts without more real engagement. Any network holding its CPM flat on inflated views effectively hands itself a raise buyers can only counter up front.
• Substack Adds a Dedicated Podcast Tab — Substack rolled out a dedicated podcast tab in its app to help creators reach current listeners and get found by new ones, noting podcasters collectively earn over $200 million on the platform. It is a notable carve-out for podcasting's brand from a company that once folded blogs into simply being "a Substack."

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

This week in the business of podcasting:

• New Sounds Profitable data shows the smart TV has overtaken the smart speaker as a top device for podcast listening, with Tom Webster arguing audiences increasingly treat podcasts as foreground viewing rather than background audio.
• The IAB raised its 2026 U.S. ad market forecast to 12.3 percent, with podcast advertising expected to grow 8.7 percent and outpace other digital audio formats.
• Scalable examines the wave of executive departures at creator-founded companies like Dude Perfect, Audiochuck, and Good Good Golf, and what those exits reveal about scaling creator-led businesses.
• True Native Media's Sabrina Nelson makes the case that podcasters do not need to be on every platform to grow, and should focus their time where it actually moves the needle.

To find links to these, and every article covered in this week's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• New Podcast Landscape 2026 data shows smart TVs now drive 12% of primary podcast listening, up from 8% in 2024, while smart speakers have flatlined at 1%. Tom Webster argues audiences increasingly treat podcasts as foreground content on the shared living-room screen rather than voice-summoned background audio.
• The IAB raised its 2026 U.S. ad growth forecast to 12.3%, up from the 9.5% it projected in January, after a stronger-than-expected first half. Podcast ad spending is climbing 8.7%, outpacing other digital audio and ranking ahead of paid search, digital display, and gaming.
• YouTube's public "view" count now registers the moment playback starts, letting mouseovers and autoplay inflate the number, while the stricter "engaged views" metric is visible only to uploaders. ADOPTER Media's Glenn Rubenstein urges buyers to make engaged views the standard on 2027 insertion orders so brands don't overpay for the same attention.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Red Seat Ventures has integrated Barometer's AI-powered brand suitability and contextual targeting engine into its Speakeasy platform, bringing episode-level ad targeting to a portfolio of more than 40 creators and cutting the over-blocking that leaves safe inventory unsold.
• Scalable examines a wave of executive departures at creator-founded companies like Dude Perfect, Audiochuck, and Good Good Golf, tracing them to founder-centric business models and the friction of bringing in professional managers to scale.
• True Native Media's Sabrina Nelson argues podcasters do not need to publish on every platform to grow, making the case for a focused distribution strategy that spends limited time where it actually moves the needle.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

This week Tom Webster goes to the bottom of the device table in the brand-new The Podcast Landscape 2026 data and finds a story that has been quietly eroding for years. The smart speaker, once pitched as podcasting's cleanest shot at owning a default, has flatlined at one percent. The device actually climbing is the biggest screen in the house. Smart TV as the most-used way to listen jumped from 8 percent in 2024 to 12 percent in 2026, and folded together with second-most-used it now reaches 25 percent of podcast consumers, while the phone slipped.

Ahead of his keynote at Podcast Movement in New York, Tom gets into what that shift really means:

• why podcast listening in the home is consolidating onto the television rather than spreading across every device in it
• what a screen changes for advertisers when a show can be seen by a whole room instead of heard through one pair of earbuds
• why the car makes the same point from the other direction, and the one context the industry has spent the least time thinking about
• what the move from background to foreground says about what the audience has decided a podcast actually is

A preview of the questions Tom will take to the stage on the 17th.

Read the full issue here.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Bloomberg reports that BetterHelp is podcasting's biggest advertiser of all time, with an estimated $242 million spent since 2023 and ads running on more than 1,000 shows at once, per Magellan AI.
• MS NOW is expanding its Crooked Media partnership, adding Jon Lovett's Lovett or Leave It to its Saturday night lineup starting September 12 through the 2026 midterms.
• Digiday reports the creator economy still has no standard way to price talent, with roughly half of marketers mispricing fees and many admitting they overpay.
• NPR launches a Senior Podcast Challenge inviting Americans 65 and older to submit original audio stories, with entries due November 30.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.

This week in the business of podcasting:

• Tom Webster runs through the stars and keynotes of Podcast Movement 2026 in New York, including his Podcast Landscape 2026 study of more than 5,400 consumers and a surprising finding that Apple has slipped out of the top three podcast platforms.
• YouTube's redefinition of a view roughly doubled reported view counts overnight, and Oxford Road's Dan Granger and Bumper's Dan Misener argue the resulting confusion makes the case for trustworthy cross-platform measurement standards.
• Australia's internet advertising hit a record $19.8 billion in FY26 with podcasting up 10.1%, even as IAB Australia's Future of Measurement review warns the industry still needs shared data standards to measure cross-channel impact.

To find links to these, and every article covered in this week's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every week.

Today in the business of podcasting:

• Podcast Movement 2026 heads to New York City September 17 and 18 at Terminal 5, where anyone registered by September 4 gets their podcast or company artwork on a Times Square display, and Tom Webster previews the keynote lineup and his Podcast Landscape 2026 research.
• Hernan Lopez breaks down a new inflection point in streaming distribution, weighing direct-to-consumer, wholesale deals through Amazon Channels, Roku, and YouTube, and ad-tier monetization, projecting Amazon Channels could reach roughly $10 billion a year.
• A federal judge ruled Google will not be forced to break up its ad tech business despite earlier monopoly findings, a decision set to reshape pricing, inventory access, and competition across programmatic advertising.

To find links to these, and every article covered in today's episode, click here. You can also subscribe to The Download's newsletter to receive the full issue straight to your email inbox every day.